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This Just In: At Home Odds/Ends

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 7, 2008

Updated: 05/07/2008 05:11 pm

Swing Low, Sweet Chair

Get as cozy in the great outdoors as you do in your living room - well, almost - in the Air Chair.

The chair uses the weight of your car or truck to support up to 600 pounds of you. It assembles in minutes (according to the manufacturer) and without tools: Set the two support brackets behind the front or rear tires of your car, then back into them and insert the main posts into position.

The Air Chair and Vehicle Stand are $269 plus shipping and handling at www.unseen

ontv.com under Sporting Goods.

Toss It In Good Conscience

If your Earth-friendly conscience can't bear the thought of tossing out foam or plastic plates or knowing trees gave their lives for your paper plates, try bamboo.

Disposable dinnerware and cutlery made from 100 percent bamboo is biodegradable and grows back quicker than you can say, "Pass the barbecue." The plates aren't as cheap as their landfill-clogging cousins - $7.50 an eight-pack - but hopefully they can be washed and reused a few times before you toss them onto the compost heap.

They're available at www.greenfest.com.

Those Crazy 8's

There must be something to the Chinese belief that 8 is the luckiest number for wealth and prosperity - Beijing did win the Olympics for 2008. Leaving nothing to chance, Chinese officials scheduled the games to begin precisely at 8:08 a.m. on 8/8/08.

One of the country's leading luxury brands, Shanghai Tang, is also cashing in on 8. Its new Luck 2008 home accessories feature the number in bold designs, along with other lucky symbols and numbers. (Eight's the most powerful because it rhymes with the Mandarin word for wealth; 6 is also prosperity, and 9 is longevity.) The designs incorporate plenty of clever visual puns, too, but you have to know some Chinese to appreciate them.

A bone china espresso cup and saucer sells for $75.

The collection will debut at Shanghai Tang's new U.S. boutique, opening this month in New York City. It will be available in July at www.shanghaitang.com.

New Toys For Dremel Lovers

Two new accessory kits offer even more little gizmos and whirligigs for workbench warmers to pop on and off their Dremels.

The EZ Lock Cutting Kit has 10 cutting wheels and an EZ Lock Mandrel for super-quick wheel changes. It'll be available in July for $19.99.

The 75-Piece Accessory Kit has cutting, cleaning, polishing, grinding, sharpening, sanding, carving and engraving tools in an embossed storage tin. It's available at Wal-Mart for $14.99 and will be widely distributed in August.

The Dremel high-speed rotary tool was developed more than 75 years ago. For project ideas and problem-solving tips, go to www.dremel.com.

Penny Carnathan

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